Powered by Android Operating System 2.2, the GALAXY Tab is the first tablet, ‘smart media device' by Samsung.

During the testing phase TelstraClear and WorldxChange Operations staff worked together to implement a carrier-carrier IP interconnect, leading the industry into a pure IP world for voice.

The company expects to realise significant savings over the next five years because of the value realised with IBM's DB2.

Huawei, has announced the launch of IDEOS, an affordable smartphone powered by the latest iteration of Android 2.2 ‘Froyo'.

For the last seven years we have been hosting Geekzone with Auckland-based ISP and hosting provider ICONZ, but since our two year contract was coming to an end it would be only good business practice to investigate alternatives in terms of cost, bandwidth, location. And with that in mind, a few weeks ago we started talking to some colocation providers. We had very few requirements - we are not the largest online publisher in New Zealand, but Geekzone does sit regularly on the top 50 New Zealand-based websites in unique visitors, according to Nielsen. According to our analytics data, 75% of our New Zealand visitors come from Auckland, with the majority of these using Telecom New Zealand, followed by (in order) Callplus/Slingshot, Orcon, WorldxChange, Vodafone and TelstraClear. Since site speed is something that I consider one of the most important things for a good user experience, it made sense to us to consider Auckland-based service providers, with good Internet access and peering. Also, when deciding location we had to consider that while New Zealand readers make up 70% of our page views, in absolute number of users it's only 40% - so we still needed to be located somewhere with good international connectivity, close to the submarine cables leaving the country. Of course we also considered physical security access, power source, etc. We managed to get into a great conversation with Datacom, through an introduction from Ben Gracewood. After considering services, infrastru

Red group (Whitcoulls and Borders) will maintain content delivery for the Sony Reader throughout Australia and New Zealand, due to their publishing rights within Oceania.

Installing it as we err, blog. How very… Apple iTunes. The Zune Software push is very likely in preparation for the impending Windows Phone 7 launch. I'm curious to see how it replaces or complements Windows Media Player/Centre. Technorati Tags: Windows Phone 7,Microsoft,Zune

New Zealand Police has referred the matter of data collection from Wi-Fi networks by Google Street View back to the office of the Privacy Commissioner.

On Saturday 28 August at 12.52pm a mobile user ported their Telecom 027 number to 2degrees, and in the course of doing so became the 100,000th customer to port their mobile number to New Zealand's newest mobile network.

Received a media release from the NZ Police a moment ago, that seems to say that if you leave your Wi-Fi connection unencrypted so that others can snoop on your data… "tough, you have yourself to blame". We'll see if the Privacy Commissioner takes the matter further. Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff has expressed surprise that Google didn't tell the public more clearly that the information would be collected and has asked for further details about.   Police has referred the matter of data collection from Wi-Fi networks by Google Street View back to the office of the Privacy Commissioner. The Privacy Commissioner formally referred the matter to Police in June following concerns over Google obtaining unencrypted Wi-Fi data while collecting panoramic digital images for its Street View service. An investigation by Police has determined that there is no evidence to suggest a criminal offence has been committed. Police has now handed the matter back to the Privacy Commissioner for further consideration. Detective Senior Sergeant John van den Heuvel of the Police National Cyber Crime Centre says the matter is a timely reminder about Wi-Fi security: "Anyone using Wi-Fi needs to ensure they have appropriate security measures in place. People should not underestimate the risk that information they broadcast might be accessed by others, either inadvertently or for more sinister purposes."

At a point where the anticipation for Windows Phone 7 seems to be reaching fever pitch amongst many gadget lovers and Microsoft faithful, it has been announced that the Windows Phone 7 software has been released to handset manufacturers. In the Octob... (more in the full post)

Just a heads up that PriceSpy has officially announced their Android app supporting New Zealand. Here's a screenshot:With this app you can:• Check the best prices for a product.• Check PriceSpy user reviews for a product.• See stores selling a certain product laid out on Google maps.• Get directions to stores selling a product.It should complement the PriceSpy website nicely...

Further to my blog post in March about my dramas with Euro Car Rental, there is an interesting article in the Herald today about them: Car rental tourist rip-off directors fined Two Christchurch car rental companies have been ordered to pay $43,710 in fines and reparations for ripping off foreign tourists, prompting a warning from the Commerce Commission that it is watching the tourism sector closely. Directors of both companies, Kylee and Gary Harris, plead guilty to 18 charges of breaching the Fair Trading Act by: Telling customers they had damaged cars when they had not. Lying about repairs to rental cars that hadn't been done. Levying charges that had not been disclosed. Promising late model cars but then supplying cars up to eight years old. Saying they were "Qualmark" endorsed when its membership had lapsed months ago. Thanks to alikat and kiwitrc for the heads up.

Last week I had a variety of emails that reminded me of a hidden gremlin that exists in our industry - a client will only realise the true value of a service they've bought, after it all goes pear shaped. They don't really understand the true value of a well planned, organised and implemented product or service, and get drawn in by overpromising sales reps, flashy banners, and big numbers.  It's not until they lose service, require a backup etc that those extra dollars to pay for a premium service or redundancy really start to look attractive - often by that time it's all too late. Three general examples I've recently see: Website stability issues when hosting a website with a free webhost in the States Experiencing multiple extended outages on a dedicated server, even when the web-hoster advertises ridiculously high data caps, and pulling through data close to that every month, and Losing data after an SQL injection attack on a poorly written site. The issue we all face is a client's budget never meet the requirements they have.  To help cost cutting they outsource overseas followed up with less-then-reliable hosts, and don't have everything secured properly.  Only after it all breaks, do they come back to you pleading for your help. If worked correctly, fixing up these scenarios can guarantee a client's loyalty for life.  You look like the good guy, the client finally gets what they are after, and you get that satisfaction from a job well done. I jus

Been running around Tech Ed 2010 here in Auckland, checking out what's new in Microsoft-land. The one thing that most people are curious about is Windows Phone 7, so here it is. Check out my piece in Computerworld on my initial impressions of Windows Phone 7. One thing's for sure - I wish Microsoft had called it something else. Writing about Windows Phone 7 phones sounds stupid. Technorati Tags: Windows Phone 7,Microsoft,Tech-Ed 2010,New Zealand

Businesses can connect IP-enabled PBX & Unified Communications systems to make voice calls via Skype.

Incredible how Microsoft is still struggling to get product names right. After buying FolderShare and turning it into Windows Live Mesh the company changed its name to Windows Live Sync, just to rename it again today to Windows Live Mesh. Ok, you get an increase from 2GB to 5GB storage for synced files, but come on... Enough of "Windows Live..." products. Foldershare worked fine as a name, thanks. Drop Windows Live and go back to the roots. Hotmail, Foldershare will work just as well, without the "Windows Live..." bits. While at it why not "BlogWriter" instead of "Windows Live Writer", and just "MovieMaker" instead of "Windows Live MovieMaker". And perhaps get out of "Windows Phone 7" and use something like "myPhone". Microsoft already have the MyPhone service anyway. (Note I didn't check for any trademarks, so these might be taken anyway).

NZ$5.0 million electronics manufacturing boost in Christchurch, with then new jobs.

Simply connect via a USB port to automatically backup multiple drives to your Mac or PC or both.

Unlike overseas, it's almost impossible to get any information out of the local Microsoft subsidiary when it comes to Windows Phone 7. In Australia, Telstra and Microsoft is already talking about handsets, albeit in a mumbly fashion that doesn't mean much, but in NZ, nothing. Telecom NZ has been working very closely with Microsoft NZ, so I wouldn't be surprised if XT gets WinPhone7 devices before Vodafone. There were going to be handsets for developers and lowly media types like yours truly to look at in August. Nothing appeared however, and now the idea is to keep schtumm until close to launch, with just a few reviewers getting phones under NDAs apparently. Apparently, NZ WinPho7 developers have been allowed to look at a total of two nine devices from LG all on loan from Microsoft. The ones that they were meant to be able to buy from Samsung sourced from ASUS didn't materialise. The LG device seems OK, but a slide-out keyboard? Hmm. The point of the locals being secrets squirrels is lost on me, because every man, woman and dog interested in WinPho 7 can satisfy their curiosity through a quick Internet search. Even  Microsoft's website has a fair bit of info, and anyone can download the WinPho7 SDK (apparently, 300,000 have done so already) and fire up  the emulator that comes with it. You could even write some apps for it, but it might be a little hard to test these under real-life conditions for the reasons described above. October seems to be when Microsoft lift

Although I use Microsoft BPOS myself (after realising the fail in Google mobile sync technologies last year), my relatives' small business have their email hosted with Google Apps Premiere. The reason we used Google apps Premiere for their email is that we could use the Google Apps Outlook Sync for Microsoft Outlook. After all we don't want to impact their small organsation, and keep things running as before, right? For them that meant keep using Microsoft Outlook and Google Apps Outlook Sync for Microsoft Outlook indeed provided for that. All was going well for the first year, I say. Quick and easy. But then they decided to go on a travel and instead of taking their large laptop, they decided on a HP Mini. Installed  Outlook and Google Apps Outlook Sync for Microsoft Outlook on that and off they went. Last weekend we all went to Napier for a sad family event. They took the HP Mini with them. On Saturday evening we started the laptop, opened Microsoft Outlook, to be told by Google Apps Outlook Sync for Microsoft Outlook that it needed to re-sync. Now, the options were re-sync, or overwrite the contents on the laptop. And over mobile data "overwrite the contents on the laptop" seemed overkill. We are talking about a gigabyte or so over mobile, which is not exactly cheap. So we opted for re-sync. And it worked for about an hour on that... On Monday, she found out all emails from May through July were gone from the main laptop. They were also gone from the Google Apps Mail

The Microsoft New Zealand Tech Ed 2010 is sold out, and just about to start this coming week. As if those crazy days of all things Microsoft would not be enough to fuel developers and system admins for the next year, the MS Communities is running its... (more in the full post)

Microsoft have launched Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 to businesses - following a public beta programme that has been running since June. This release brings a raft of new features just 10 months after the initial version of Exchange Server 201... (more in the full post)

AAPT this week extended its move into Google Apps cloud services, deploying Gmail, contacts and calendar systems across its 1,200-strong workforce.

The new handset supports YouTube and other Flash content via Adobe Flash Lite, comes with a 5-megapixel camera with 8x zoom, flash and advanced shooting and editing capabilities.

Bartlett says that Orcon's no fixed-term contracts mean people hungry for the latest handsets aren't locked into three-year contracts.

The competition aims to provide SEO specialists with an opportunity to demonstrate their capability by building a site and optimising it for an "official" keyword phrase, which will be provided via text message to all registered competitors on 31st of August.

Orcon CEO Scott Bartlett warned recently that the consequences stemming from changes to the government's Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB) project could end up "cementing the [Local Fibre Companies] as 'one big, nasty monopoly per region'" and he may well end up being right. Originally, the UFB Invitation to Participate or ITP stressed that it would be mandatory for the LFCs above to provide access seekers with "dark fibre" - that is, access to fibre-optic circuits that could be lit up by say an ISP according to the services it wanted to provide to customers. Having access to Layer 1 of the fibre-optic network would enable access seekers to create a range of service options, that could then be retailed or wholesaled. This could be 100Mbit/s or 1Gbit/s options, and maybe even multiple such connections, with their own service level commitments to differentiate from other players in the market. Access seekers would use their own gear, and it'd be similar to Orcon, Vodafone, Telecom, TelstraClear, Compass and Callplus using their choice of DSL modems and DSLAMs on LLU. Now however, full access to Layer 1 or dark fibre is closed to at least end of 2019. While Layer 2 service provision was marked as "optional" in the first version of the ITP, this is now a "must provide". Layer 2 is where the LFC adds its equipment to the ends of fibre-optic circuits, and resells the services it creates. Access seekers get to buy what the LFC provides, be it 10, 100 or in unlikely cases, 1Gbit/s, dimens

Gen-i currently integrates and manages Air New Zealand's access to voice and data network services worldwide. Gen-i has a team providing 24x7x365 day support and project services across Air New Zealand's global and domestic locations. This includes the management of services delivered by a wide range of telecommunications and technology providers worldwide.

Inside Intel, the company has elevated the priority of security to be on par with its strategic focus areas in energy-efficient performance and Internet connectivity.

Dr Nevill-Manning is also being honoured this year with a University of Waikato Distinguished Alumni Award.

Within weeks of securing two major multimillion dollar deals with SA Health and WA Health in Australia, Emendo has been awarded a milestone regional deal with Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) in Canada.

Held at the Langham Hotel, the annual awards offer Microsoft Partners the opportunity to showcase work to their peers, as well as helping them improve brand recognition, recruitment and staff retention.

Microsoft's Windows Live Essentials comprise a set of utilities that are definitely worth downloading - I use Windows Live Writer to blog here on Geekzone for instance, and Movie Maker and Live Photo Gallery are really useful little apps. There's a refresh of the Live Essentials underway, and a lengthy beta programme for them is underway. The first beta that I tried was promising, although Windows Live Writer now inserts DIV tags that plays havoc with the Geekzone blog formatting when you embed videos. I was keen to see if the second beta round had sorted that out, and have been fighting the Live Essentials Beta installer for a couple of days now. At first, the installer stopped at 38 per cent done, saying another program was preventing it from completing. Right. Which other program? That was obviously too much information to give out, and the suggested workarounds that included clearing out the temp folder and so forth didn't make any difference. So, I uninstalled all the Windows Live Essentials on my machine, got a fresh copy of the new beta installer and… this time I got to 97 per cent complete before "another program was preventing" it from completing again. Arrgh. I tried again, making sure that as many other apps and services were stopped, and woo! the Windows Live Essentials Beta installer finished! Hang on… did it really?Fantastic. That's such a useful error message. The apps seem to be there - I'm writing this in Windows Live Writer 2011 - and I wonder what will hap

The global wildlife conservation community is going online, with 18 prominent zoos and aquariums leading the way.

Well-known Kiwiblog creator David Farrar joins judging panel of open source experts.

First wave of Xbox LIVE titles from award-winning publishers announced for the launch of Windows Phone 7.

Here's something at least I haven't come across before, namely Google removing results due to DMCA complaints. This seems to be a fairly new method to go after alleged intellectual property and copyright infringers.Click on the links in the quoted text below to get the full details, but it's basically a certain fashion brand that has filed the DMCA complaint, saying the specified sites are "marketing and selling counterfeit" products. Based on that, the brand is asking Google to remove them from its index. In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org. Deckers filed similar DMCA complaints in February this year: http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=18922 and Fox sent one in just a few days ago, on August 13, requesting that a large number of results pointing to "Vampires Suck" were to be removed.I'm guessing the DMCAs filed with Google are due to some extent to rights holders not getting anywhere with ISPs in non-US countries. Removing sites from Google's index is probably an effective, but also a very blunt weapon.The question here is of course how much legit and fair use info is being removed from search engines due to DMCA notices? Technorati Tags: DMCA,google,search,search engines,IP,Fox,Deckers

After neglecting the online gaming community for so long, the Microsoft mobile folks are at least working on a killer proposition: get those online gamers into mobile. They are talking about 25 million active Xbox LIVE users who will have access, through Windows Phone 7 to a lot of the features they are used to while playing PC games and consoles: avatars, achievements, gamerscore, etc. This is a list of game available at launch: . "3D Brick Breaker Revolution" (Digital Chocolate) . "Age of Zombies" (Halfbrick). "Armor Valley" (Prot?g? Games). "Asphalt 5" (Gameloft) . "Assassins Creed" (Gameloft) . "Bejeweled LIVE" (PopCap) . "Bloons TD" (Digital Goldfish). "Brain Challenge" (Gameloft). "Bubble Town 2" (i-Play). "Butterfly" (Press Start Studio). "CarneyVale Showtime" (MGS). "Castlevania" (Konami) . "Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst" (MGS). "De Blob Revolution" (THQ) . "Deal or No Deal 2010" (i-Play). "Earthworm Jim" (Gameloft) . "Fast & Furious 7" (i-Play). "Fight Game Rivals" (Rough Cookie). "Finger Physics" (Mobliss Inc.) . "Flight Control" (Namco Bandai). "Flowerz" (Carbonated Games). "Frogger" (Konami). "Fruit Ninja" (Halfbrick). "Game Chest-Board" (MGS). "Game Chest-Card" (MGS). "Game Chest-Logic" (MGS). "Game Chest-Solitaire" (MGS). "GeoDefense" (Critical Thought). "Ghostscape" (Psionic) . "Glow Artisan" (Powerhead Games). "Glyder 2" (Glu Mobile) . "Guitar Hero 5" (Glu Mobile) . "Halo Waypoint" (MGS). "Hexic Rush" (Carbonated Games). "I Dig It" (InMotion) . "iBlast Mo

A new research paper into New Zealand's video and computer game sector has found that the average age of players is 33 years old and 88.5 per cent of all New Zealand households have a device for playing computer games.

My good friend Nic "Fastchicken" Wise has been travelling with his iPhone 4 (flash git, and he won't give me one either) racking up big data charges despite having roaming turned off. Being a good geek, Nic filed a community bug report on this "feature". See below. iOS4 - turning data roaming off DOES NOT WORK Originator: nicw Number: rdar://8301396Date Originated: 2-Aug-2010 11:25 AM Status: OpenResolved: Product: iOS4Product Version: 4.0 Classification:Reproducible: Yup Summary:In my recent trip to Denmark (I live in the UK), I turned my phone on in the plane after we landed, and immediately received 6 emails, even tho Data Roaming is off (it's always off, I never, EVER use data when roaming, too expensive).If I try to do any other data after turning airplane mode off, it fails (as it should). Just appears to be the initial "new country, new network...." type thing.Steps to Reproduce:Turn on airplane mode.Get in a plane and fly to another country.Turn off airplane modeSee the emails which have come in despite data roaming being off. Wonder how the hell this happened. Wonder if it'll happen again. Wonder how big the bill is going to be.Expected Results:No email. No data traffic. No crazy telco charges!Actual Results:Email! Data Traffic! Around £20 of data charges over 5 trips (between 3-10£/meg over 4 trips)Regression:Absolutely. This never happened with 3.x on my 3G. But on the 4/iOS4, happens on every trip.Notes:This is not a one-off case. Happened this week in

Users can create postcards from their own pictures, New Zealand Post will then print it on premium-quality satin-finished card and deliver within New Zealand or overseas.

The first high end Android device to come to Telecom New Zealand, with the latest available OS version for this model.

If you have seen Das Boot (or not), here is a spoof created by students at the Media Design School in Auckland, called Das Tub.I received an invite for their launch event, but you can watch it online now...

Global audience to Twitter.com doubles in past year, as Latin American audience grows fourfold.

Watch the TVNZ 7 Internet Debate live and participate in the online chat.

Sybase IPX 365 full suite of services includes global data roaming, messaging hubs, IPX Voice, and signalling.

Relationship will include unique, natively integrated Polycom solutions and coordinated go-to-market initiatives for Microsoft unified communications.

Datastor, Gen-I and Maclean Computing win Symantec's 2010 Partner Awards.

Vodafone New Zealand has announced a new set of mobile plans called "SIMple"... These are basically a no long term on account plan. The company is trying to  get to those users who don't care for a handset subsidy and care even less for a long term "partnership", but don't want prepay (for many reasons, perhaps even the need of invoices, complete activity lists, etc): Digital Island is a MVNO that resells Telecom New Zealand XT mobile services. Clearly they don't have a "SIMple" plan, but they do have a SIMple logo: Coincidence? According to Digital Island's Blair Stewart "Digital Island's design agency created the SIMple concept in early May and we added it to our website later the same month. Vodafone launched SIMple on their website in August." Thanks to regs for the tip in our forums.